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May 02, 2024
 

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IGADGET

Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 28, 2008
Earthlings just can't resist the connection
Bluetooth as Big Brother: Humans are naturally gregarious, which is just as well since it seems that the intent of modern communications is to keep us all connected 24/7 — whether we want it or not.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 21, 2008
Frame your memories in slideshow fashion
Kodak moments: One key advantage of digital photography over the traditional film and chemical approach is how you display your results. While you can print out your digital photos and then stick them up on your fridge or up on your mantle, just like in the old days of film, you can also do something completely different.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
May 14, 2008
Chubby checker: the machine that measures your fat
Assessing the battle: Is the humble bathroom scale destined, like the manual typewriter, for the halls of obsolescence? Amid the fret over metabolic syndrome and other health issues, just measuring your weight, even down to the gram, doesn't get the job done anymore.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 30, 2008
Say it with a picture, then share it wirelessly
Durable digital Ricoh has a habit of coming up with its own smart ideas as to what a camera should offer. Its latest bit of creativity is the G600, which intends to make its name for being water- and dust-resistant, not to mention possessing exceptional toughness.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 23, 2008
Tech to get people talking
Say what you want: Why use a tiny keypad to communicate when the human voice can do the job? NTT DoCoMo last week launched a new mobile phone from Fujitsu, the F884i, that will put the joy back into talking to your e-mail contacts. Employing the new FOMA Raku Raku Phone Premium system, users enter their e-mail text by talking to their phone instead of exercising their thumb. Pressing the phone's "voice input" button activates the feature and the user simply says their message aloud. The words are then sent to a server where voice-recognition software, created by Advanced Media Inc., works out what it thinks the user said and the text is then sent back to the phone to be displayed for a final check. A major downside to this tech is that the common places where people now send e-mail are those where talking into your phone is frowned upon: the office, on a train. The clamshell handset has a screen that can swivel into a horizontal position, enhancing its 1Seg TV viewing capability. The F8841 also supports both W-CDMA and GSM technologies, allowing it to be used for international roaming. www.nttdocomo.co.jp
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 16, 2008
You'll never have to miss a shot or a show
Mini movie maker: Panasonic knows the virtue of small cameras. Its latest contribution to the cause is the SDR-S7, a digital camcorder that fits in your palm and weighs a mere 160 grams, including the rechargeable battery. About the same height and width as a small can of coffee, the SDR-S7 includes a 10x zoom and a 2.7-inch LCD screen. It records in the MPEG-2 format at a resolution of 640×480 onto either SD or SDHC memory cards (not included) for up to 13 hours of video on a 16-gigabyte card. The tradeoff is on battery life: 70 minutes of use sends you back to the recharger. Available in either black or silver, the camcorder will sell for ¥44,800 when it comes out April 25. panasonic.jp/
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 9, 2008
A renaissance of hand-held power
Crank up the music: Giving electronic devices mobility is the easy part. Empowering them to function for any length of time before you have to recharge them is quite another challenge. Local gadget whiz Thanko is helping out with its functionally titled Cranking MP3 Player, a new digital- music player that you can recharge with a hand-crank. One minute of physical exertion earns you 10 minutes of playing time. The otherwise routine player can also be recharged using conventional means: AC adapter or via USB. The player supports MP3 and WMA files and includes 1 gigabyte of internal memory. It also has a flashlight. The unit is available for ¥5,980, with details at www.thanko.jp/crankingmp3/
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Apr 2, 2008
Revisit the pleasure of penmanship
The writing is on the electron: Writing by hand is a human endeavor that technology has not yet spelled the end of, but it is working at it. Ever since the humble typewriter changed the office, the art of penmanship has been in retreat. In recent times, a slew of gadgets have tried to turn the rivals into allies, allowing you to write your words and have them converted into digital form. Princeton, with its range of laptop accessories, is very much in the tech camp. On its new PTB-DIP1, the user simply places an ordinary sheet of paper on top of the tablet and pens away using. The device "reads" the handwriting with Myscript Note Basic software and converts it into either text files or images in the GIF or JPEG formats. The equivalent of 100 A4-size written pages can be stored in its 32 megabytes of memory. An SD card slot allows for extra storage. The USB-connectable unit weighs 650 grams and measures 250×350×12 mm. Costing ¥19,800, the device hits the market this month with details at: www.princeton.co.jp
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 26, 2008
Phone imitates MP3 imitates phone
Lighter than Air: Anorexic models might no longer be PC on the catwalks, but laptop computer makers believe that consumers just can't keep their hands off them. As usual, Apple is seen as the trendsetter, thanks to its ultrathin MacBook Air model, which is trumpeted as the thinnest laptop of them all with a minimum thickness of just 0.4 cm. How does it achieve such stylish thinness? Essentially, by leaving out such seemingly essential items as an optical drive and extra ports. Kouziro follows the less-is-more concept, but with a far lighter price tag, on its FRLN series of ultralight laptops. Boasting a body as thin as 1.25 cm, the FRLN models weigh just 1.24 kg, beating the 1.36 kg Air, which does have a slightly bigger screen. The entry-level FRLN11 sells for ¥130,000, undercutting the Air's cheapest setup by ¥100,000, but the specs are none too exciting: 800 MHz Intel A110 processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, 80 gigabytes on the hard-drive, 12.1-inch screen and Windows XP Home operating system. The four-hour battery life can be boosted to 8 1/2 hours with an optional battery pack. A fingerprint reader, waterproof keyboard and the durability to survive a 1-meter fall onto concrete dress up the slim package. Check it out at: www.frontier-k.co.jp/note/
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 19, 2008
Burst into song anytime with pocket karaoke
Diving directors: Everything about jumping out of an aircraft is a memorable experience, so filming the experience is a must. Skydivers have new opportunities to express their creativity thanks to Elmo Japan and its new SUV-Cam Professional, out March 26. The unit consists of a distinctly small camcorder head, which looks like a long thin camera lens, connected to a separate recorder unit with a 2.2-inch LCD display. The camera records video in MPEG4 format on SD and SDHC cards. The Lithium Ion battery allows for a continuous recording time of up to 2 1/2 hours, or five hours of playback. The waterproof camera head can be attached to motorcycles, bicycles, snowmobiles and other means of extreme recreational activities, beyond a skydiving helmet. The recording unit is set to be sold for ¥84,000 with the camera head slated to go for ¥31,500 and more details can be found at their Web site
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 12, 2008
Cell phones get more playful
Easy listings: Everything about television is changing fast. One old standard for the living room TV set was that you kept a TV listings magazine close by with a listing of programs. These days, even that is changing. Nintendo is helping the process with its new software for the Wii game console the TV no Tomo. The interactive TV guide lets you peruse the upcoming delicacies on the TV menu and even bookmark them. The program can then send you an e-mail alert when your bookmarked program is starting. The software is free of charge and available for download at: www.nintendo.co.jp/wii/features/tv_no_tomo
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Mar 5, 2008
Easy-to-listen-to hits, soccer memories
Proven brand: Picking genuine designer goods from increasingly sophisticated ripoffs is tough. So Hitachi and printing maestro Toppan next month bring to Japan a high-tech method for seeing beyond the label. The IC Hologram is an RFID (radio-frequency identification) tag with a special hologram etched onto it that will be attached to an item's packaging. The hologram is expensive to fake and the RFID computer chip data is encrypted and difficult to crack. Together, the two features are expected to be too tough for forgers to copy. In the future, such tags are also expected to be used to verify batches of medicine. But for now Hitachi and Toppan anticipate that proving the authenticity of luxury items will generate ¥4 billion in annual sales of the high-tech tags. More information can be found at: www.toppan.co.jp/news
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Feb 27, 2008
Excercise machines stride into the future, Sony reels into the retro past and Thanko's latest product sucks
Give exercise the finger:
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Feb 20, 2008
Toshiba unveils its new Gigabeat MP3 player; and 'Phoenix' hits the DS
Striking a chord: Toshiba has upgraded its Gigabeat T401 MP3 player, giving it wireless network connectivity and rebadging it as the T802. It also has 8 gigabytes of flash memory, up from the 4 gigabytes of the T401, and its battery is good for 16 hours of music playback or five hours of video. The new model hit the shelves Friday and costs ¥29,800. For more information, visit www.toshiba.co.jp
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Feb 13, 2008
Casio unveils its speediest camera; and every home gets its very own fireplace
Snappier snaps: A good-quality digital camera can take perhaps four or five photos a second, but Casio has left the competition in its wake with its just-announced Exilim Pro EX-F1, which boasts a staggering pace of 60 6-megapixel photos a second. It can also record video at an equally outlandish rate of 1,200 frames per second. Casio is rumbling that it is going to eliminate the shutter button from cameras. It is difficult to set up a photo and take the shot in time with the old custom of pressing a button, and the act of hitting the shutter causes vibrations in the camera that can blur photos. By taking shots buttonless and in rapid succession, the photographer can be confident that at least one of their string of pictures is the money shot. At this point in time the camera is a niche product, but it may help prompt other camera-makers to crank up the speed of their products. Apart from its blazing sequential shooting speed, the camera is a pretty standard compact, packing only a 6-megapixel sensor and with a lens that offers a generous zoom range equivalent to 38-432 mm in 35-mm terms. Speed costs, though, with the price tag expected to top ¥100,000 when it is released in late March. More details are at www.casio.co.jp.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Feb 6, 2008
A digital SLR camera for every trigger finger
Snap-happy: Digital cameras come in all shapes and sizes. With their interchangeable lenses and reasonable prices, entry-level digital SLR (single-lens reflex) cameras are a halfway house between a cheap pocket-size point-and-click camera and a full-on pro shooter. The best-selling of the entry-level beasties of late has been Nikon's very successful D40X model. Nikon is now bringing out a new entry-level model, the D60, essentially an upgrade of the D40X. It has virtually the same smallish body with only a slightly bigger 10.2-megapixel photographic sensor. The key enhancements are the addition of a built-in dust-fighting system and a new antishake (VR, or vibration reduction, in Nikonese) version of its 18-55 mm lens as the D60's "kit lens" — the lens that you can buy as a set with the camera body. The D60 is due to hit the shelves on Feb. 22 with a price tag of ¥74,800 for the body only, ¥89,800 for the body and kit lens combo, and ¥119,800 when the Nikon 55-200 mm VR lens is thrown in with the kit lens to form a zoom lens combination.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jan 30, 2008
Hitachi gives its HD camcorders even more memory; and cars look us in the eye
Going HD: As television sets get more advanced, so too do video camcorders, and that means going high-definition. Hitachi's recent DZ-BD7H camcorder records onto Blu-ray discs alongside its 30-gigabyte hard disk. But Hitachi has upped the stakes with its new DZ-BD9H, out in February and keeping the Blu-ray ability but doubling the in-camera storage to 60-gigabytes. A second new model, the DZ-HD90, omits the Blu-ray. Both camcorders offer 5.3 megapixels of resolution. Prices are estimated at ¥180,000 and ¥140,000 respectively.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jan 23, 2008
PC games invade the PlayStation 3
PS3 levels up: StreamMyGame.com has released, for free, its Linux Player, which allows any game created for use on a PC to be played on a PlayStation 3 running the Linux system. You need to have Linux installed on a PS3 (versions such as Ubuntu and Yellow Dog Linux will do the trick). It works by feeding the game from one computer via the StreamMyGame server back to a second computer, PS3 or other Linux device. The server is compatible with Windows XP and Vista, and the second computer or PS3 doesn't have to have the game loaded on it. StreamMyGame is available for free by registering at www.streammygame.com.
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Jan 9, 2008
A microphone you put in your ear, and a video recorder kids can take anywhere
Silence is golden: Sanyo and NS-ELEX have unveiled their new earphone microphone, e-Mimi-kun. Using bone-conduction audio technology, it is designed to cut out background noise, the bane of modern life, and boost the quality of your sound transmission. If you are talking on your cell phone, for example, you simply plug the unit into your ear and transmit your voice, with no background noise, to the person you are talking to, and listen to their voice too. Beyond cell phones, the gadget can be used with any device into which a microphone can be plugged. Silence comes at a price, with the wired version due in April at ¥40,000 and a wireless version, using Bluetooth, to cost ¥60,000.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital / IGADGET
Dec 19, 2007
The Nintendo DS levels up, and phones make kids safer
Double vision: Nintendo's two-screened DS is set to become even more of a must-have product thanks to the DSVision, which will allow users to watch videos and read e-books and manga on the portable console. Users simply download the media to their computer, transfer the content to a microSD card, and then load the card into a DS via a custom cartridge. The DSVision set includes a 512-megabyte microSD card, USB card-reader and the cartridge, with AM3 putting the sets on sale in January 2008 for ¥3,980. Downloadable media is set to follow in March in conjunction with e-book distributor Dai Nippon. Of course, sets such as the R4 have allowed DS users to run media and home-brew software for ages — not to mention illegally downloaded games. Whether the DSVision will somehow defy the pirates is yet to be seen.
'So hot you can't breathe': Extreme heat hits the Philippines
A pedestrian cools himself with a folding hand fan as he waits for a ride along a road in Manila on Wednesday, as extreme heat hit the Philippines.
Did Japan intervene to prop up the yen? Analysts think it did.
A man walks past an electronic board displaying the exchange rate for the yen against the U.S. dollar (right) in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Town to block view of Mount Fuji in response to overtourism
The town government of Fujikawaguchiko, Yamanashi Prefecture, decided to set up a 2.5-meter-high screen to prevent tourists from taking pictures of Mount Fuji looming behind a convenience store.
Number of vacant homes in Japan hits record high of 9 million
A vacant house in Tokyo is seen demolished in January 2020.
Weak yen fattens tourist wallets in Japan
People visit the Ameya Yokocho market in Tokyo's Ueno district during the Golden Week holiday on Tuesday.
Kishida sets sights on energy and climate in South America trip
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida will use a policy speech in Sao Paulo to set out his vision for ties between Japan and South America, almost 10 years after former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe advocated for stronger ties between the two in the same city.
Yellow sand allergy: A health issue made worse by climate change
A screenshot of the Meteorological Agency's satellite image of clouds and yellow sand (in pink) on Sunday.
Climate change, chalky grains and the risks for Japan’s rice farmers
A farmer plants seedlings in Satsumasendai, Kagoshima Prefecture. Japan’s self sufficiency rate for rice is nearly 100%, compared with 38% for food overall, on a calorie basis.
Japan wants you to spend more with ‘luxury tourism’
Performers play a traditional drum unique to Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture, in the prefectural capital of Kanazawa on March 16 to mark the extension of the Hokuriku Shinkansen line to Tsuruga Station in Fukui Prefecture.
Theaster Gates’ ambitious ‘Afro-Mingei’ brings Black Chicago to Tokyo
Theaster Gates' “A Heavenly Chord” lines up church pews before seven speakers and a Hammond B3 organ, a type of electric organ prevalent in Black American churches.

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